SCIENTOLOGYIts True Nature

IX. Divine Services

The Scientology church has its own divine services with its own ministers, sermons and creed. Part of a divine service may also be to listen to taped lectures of L. Ron Hubbard. It also includes a “Prayer For Total Freedom.”

A church handbook compiled by the Mother Church in California also includes instructions for naming ceremonies, weddings, and funerals. The naming ceremony is held to help the thetan, the spiritual being, identify with his new body and to formally introduce him to his parents and family and friends.

The divine and ecclesiastical services, however, do not hold the central standing in Scientology as in traditional Christian churches. But it should be noted that the divine services of various religions constitute a wide spectrum.

For instance, in a typical Hindu temple, every individual or family goes there to conduct their own rituals and to ask for advice from their religious leaders, usually without common rituals conducted for all. Also, it is only natural that prayers have a different meaning in a religion where God is understood as an impersonal entity, than in a religion where a personal God or gods are believed in and communicated with.